


Connected Strangers

by aflawedfashion



Category: Defiance (TV)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/F, Femslash, The start of beautiful enmity, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-02 23:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8687776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflawedfashion/pseuds/aflawedfashion
Summary: A series of relatively canon compliant vignettes that expand upon Berlin and Irisa's relationship and complicated feelings towards each other in season 2.





	1. My Boyfriend's Ex-Girlfriend

Berlin had no intention of falling in love, certainly not with a man, not after the disaster that her relationship with Conrad Von Bach had become. She had goals that required her to be serious, organized, and in full control of her life, but love ran contrary to every one of those goals. Love invaded her consciousness and demanded she put her fate in the hands of another for a purpose she couldn’t fully understand. Why should she fall in love when she could find friendship on the first floor of the NeedWant and sex on the second floor?

And she lived by that philosophy quite happily until she met Tommy Lasalle. He changed her life like a cinematic cliche that made her cringe just thinking about it, but she couldn’t stop herself from falling for this kind, gentle man who was nothing like anyone she had been with before, nothing like Conrad.

Her relationship with Conrad had ended disastrously, but she had told Tommy all about him because she believed that her history was best out in the open. No secrets. No lies of omission. Unfortunately, Tommy didn’t speak as openly about his past as she did, but she was used to that. Few people in her life ever did. 

What she knew of Tommy’s ex she learned from his passing comments or whispers from strangers behind her back. Berlin had even once overheard the former mayor telling a story about Tommy and his ex, careful not to mention her name as if this woman’s identity was a secret she was keeping, not only from Berlin, but the entire Earth Republic. Berlin listened, standing cautiously to the side even though she knew she shouldn't be eavesdropping. Mayor Rosewater didn’t trust anyone who wore an E-Rep uniform, so when she finished her story with a lingering smile, Berlin couldn’t ask her to say anything more. And she wouldn’t ask Tommy to talk about something he didn’t want to talk about, no matter how curious she was.

So, without knowing the whole story, she formed a mental image of this woman that changed as she uncovered new details. At first, before she knew anything about her, Berlin had pictured Tommy with a sweet human woman, the type she had seen in old films, the type who didn’t really exist. She pictured this woman reading a book in a cafe while wearing a dress in a style that hadn’t been made in 100 years.

But this picture perfect woman was no more than a fantasy. The reality was that Tommy’s ex was probably a Spirit Rider who had left town suddenly, breaking his heart. In all honesty, Berlin was relieved to learn how their relationship ended. She didn’t think she could handle knowing that the man who swept her off her feet like a cliche had an even more perfectly cliche ex who she could never live up to.

Once she knew how it ended, it wasn’t long before Berlin stopped wondering about this woman, stopped hoping Tommy would open up about her. Berlin decided to put his ex in the past, having learned enough to believe that if she had ever met her, they’d probably be friends. Most of what she knew of her, she liked.


	2. My Prisoner

**Previously on Defiance 2x02:**  
  
Irisa drove Nolan's roller into Defiance where she promptly got herself arrested by Berlin.

 "Irisa is a real pretty name. It'll look good on the arrest report."  


**10 minutes later:**

This morning Berlin had been exhausted. More than just exhausted, she was insufferably tired of people who didn’t seem to care how important her film was to the future of Defiance, to the future of the entire Earth Republic.

But that was this morning. That was before Irisa changed everything by entering her life with a sense of trouble she found frustratingly irresistible. Thoughts of her film flew out of her mind as quickly as Irisa came barrelling into Defiance. If she had been thinking more clearly, she would have filmed everything that happened, highlighted the efficiency of the Earth Republic in dealing with troublemakers from the badlands, but she wasn’t thinking clearly.

For a few minutes, her every thought had been consumed by tension and violence, but then her world settled into silence, and she was left left sitting side by side with Irisa in the back seat of the roller, her camera tucked safely away. Irisa, the Irathient woman who traveled with knives strapped to her body, had taken full priority. Irisa, the woman with the pretty name she couldn’t stop repeating, was all she could think about.

She briefly thought of opening the door, pushing her out of the moving vehicle, and making her pay for her insolence towards an Earth Republic captain, but she quickly told herself that would be wrong. That wasn't the behavior of an Earth Republic captain, and she had worked too hard for this job to lose it over a woman she didn't even know, so she pushed that thought out of her head.

And then her eyes landed on Irisa's hands, cuffed together, resting on her thighs as she sat in a defiant slouch, and Berlin had to hold back the smile that was threatening to ruin her carefully crafted facade. Suddenly, all she could think about was taking her to the second floor of the NeedWant to see what she was made of, see if she really was the person she was trying to appear to be.

“What are you looking at?” Irisa snarled, and Berlin realized she was staring. Not just staring, she had practically been ogling her.

Berlin had never been good at hiding her thoughts, and she had long ago realized the best thing she could do was own the expressions written on her face. So, without skipping a beat, she leaned closer to Irisa and let a hint of a smile play across her face as she answered, “My prisoner.”

Irisa didn't respond, her face frozen in an unreadable mask, but she was staring so intensely into Berlin's eyes that she could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up. In Berlin’s experience, there were only two times anyone ever looked at her the way Irisa was looking at her. The first was when she was about to be kissed, and the second was when she was about to be hit. Fortunately, most people gave off enough physical clues for Berlin to know if she needed to duck, but in that moment, she couldn’t tell what Irisa was going to do next, and it made her nervous, a feeling she wasn't used to.

As Berlin narrowed her eyes, doing her best to read Irisa’s body language, Irisa snarled suddenly, snapping her teeth in Berlin's face, and a voice from the front of the roller shouted something in their direction, but Berlin paid it no attention.

Her first instinct was to recoil, but she fought it, refusing to give Irisa the reaction she wanted. Instead, she smiled as she brushed a wisp of stray hair out of Irisa’s eyes, her finger slowly brushing the side of Irisa’s face. She wanted to make Irisa hate her and lust after her all at the same time, and from the way Irisa tensed, her breath catching in her chest without saying a word, she knew she had succeeded.

Satisfied, Berlin turned away from Irisa and reached across the seat, picking up a file and flipping it open, pretending to forget all about her prisoner. But it was just an act. She could still feel Irisa’s eyes on her as she refused to acknowledge her.

Reading the words on the page, but not retaining the meaning to a single one of them, she felt like a mouse waiting for Irisa to pounce. She was starting to get a little too excited wondering what Irisa would do next, but it was only moments before their game was interrupted as the vehicle came to a stop in front of the lawkeeper’s office.

Berlin continued to read for a moment, pretending to be deeply absorbed in her work before finally looking up at the sound of the back door opening. She met Irisa’s gaze with the arch of an eyebrow and a threatening glare, but Irisa simply turned away as if she couldn't care less about Berlin. She almost wanted to laugh. Irisa had sat immobile with her eyes trained on Berlin, waiting patiently just to have the final say in their silent conversation. And she succeeded.

Half of a smile spread across Berlin’s face as she watched Irisa get pulled out of the vehicle. She may have lost this battle, but this could be a fun war.


End file.
